Not enough signatures to even bother with the verification of votes. They needed 14,9xx votes plus thirty percent per RepealSMART. They turned in 14,5xx signatures even after paying people to get signatures. They cannot even go to court over that amount. That is six months worth of effort.

There is talk of a second attempt at repeal. Even if successful, it will accomplish nothing. The money will be released soon for construction, committing the money to the project.

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I understand environmentalist opposition to any form of green rail in Humboldt that reaches outside Humboldt (their objective being to slow population growth on the North Coast in every way imaginable).

Who is opposing passenger rail in Sonoma and for what reason? I mean the real reason.

Opponents sound bite they liked to use was the project is half of what voters approved. SMART keeps changing things, so they can’t be trusted. Last of all was high salary of the leader(s). Also not enough ridership. There is a conservative bent that says no to any new taxes, or expansion of government.

I wish the leader didn’t have such a high salary. Not a real reason to kill things.

Well the project does not go the full length. After getting bit by the lack of revenue, they had to over estimate costs, thus cutting more than they had to do so in the end. After the bid was in they were able to add back in two stations due to the economy being bad, covering thirty-eight of the original seventy miles. Phase one will be Downtown San Rafael to North Santa Rosa. The ridership for this section is expected to be eighty percent of the full route. They had to be flexible to get things done.

Ridership is something I expect will be better than expected. In fact I think the opening day, they will be swamped with people. Two reasons for this is people like to ride trains, and fuel prices continue to march higher.

The conse3rvative bent is one reason I hesitate to vote for Romney. He wants to get rid of Amtrak. We need better transportation. We need more passenger trains of all types. We need SMART.